The Hemingway Editor cuts the dead weight from your writing. It highlights wordy sentences in yellow and more egregious ones in red.

Keep It Simple

Hemingway helps you write with power and clarity by highlighting adverbs, passive voice, and dull, complicated words.

Jim Lerman's insight:

For 20 bucks, this app will polish up your writing so it reads better than a Ph.D. dissertation. Really, it's very good and well worth the investment. I almost never recommend an app that is not free. This one's an exception!

Coding and computer science have yet to make their way into every school curriculum in the U.S. But the country isn’t short on initiatives—such as Google’s Code Next program or the White House’s Obama era Computer Science For All campaign—which aim to change that.

And while these programs attempt to arm students will the ability to code, they sometimes overlook a critical skill that developers, computer science scholars and tech recruiters say is key to landing a job in their field: writing.

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Writing is complicated. Depending on the study you read, strong writing requires a mastery of 28, 34, or 47 distinct skills. The fact that researchers can’t even agree on how many traits go into writing illustrates just how complicated it is.

That makes the teaching of writing really complicated—writing teachers need to understand this complex skill and find a way to pass it on to 140 or more students, each with his or her own blend of prior knowledge, writing ability, and motivation.

Faced with such a Herculean task, writing teachers need to be as efficient and effective as possible. The good news is that a number of best practices have emerged in recent years that allow writing teachers to significantly improve their practice without adding more hours to already overfilled days. Here are four of the most impactful.

We’ve sorted the ideas — many of them from teachers — into two sections. The first helps students do close-readings of editorials and Op-Eds, as well as Times Op-Docs, Op-Art and editorial cartoons. The second suggests ways for students to discover their own voices on the issues they care about. We believe they, too, can “write to change the world.”

Join our webinar (live on Oct. 10 or on-demand after) to learn more, and let us know in the comments how you teach these important skills."

"This strategy guide explains how you can employ peer review in your classroom, guiding students as they offer each other constructive feedback to improve their writing and communication skills.

"Peer review refers to the many ways in which students can share their creative work with peers for constructive feedback and then use this feedback to revise and improve their work. For the writing process, revision is as important as drafting, but students often feel they cannot let go of their original words. By keeping an audience in mind and participating in focused peer review interactions, students can offer productive feedback, accept constructive criticism, and master revision. This is true of other creative projects, such as class presentations, podcasts, or blogs. Online tools can also help to broaden the concept of “peers.”

Real literacy happens in a community of people who can make meaningful connections. Peer review facilitates the type of social interaction and collaboration that is vital for student learning."

Click on the headline or image above to be taken to the full text of Baldwin's 1963 "Talk to Teachers," a consideration of the posture to be taken in the education of black (and also white) children in America. It is chilling to contemplate how completely contemporary is this piece that appeared 54 years ago. -JL

Student publishing is a topic Erin Murphy and I explore in-depth in Hack 10 of our upcoming book, Hacking Project Based Learning! (Update – The book is now available here!) Currently in my district we’ve had some preliminary talks regarding if/how digital portfolios could be implemented on a wide-scale. Of course, while the focus shouldn’t necessarily …

To determine whether formative writing assessments that are directly tied to everyday classroom teaching and learning enhance students’ writing performance, we conducted a meta-analysis of true and quasi-experiments conducted with students in grades 1 to 8. We found that feedback to students about writing from adults, peers, self, and computers statistically enhanced writing quality, yielding average weighted effect sizes of 0.87, 0.58, 0.62, and 0.38, respectively. We did not find, however, that teachers’ monitoring of students’ writing progress or implementation of the 6 + 1 Trait Writing model meaningfully enhanced students’ writing. The findings from this meta-analysis provide support for the use of formative writing assessments that provide feedback directly to students as part of everyday teaching and learning. We argue that such assessments should be used more frequently by teachers, and that they should play a stronger role in the Next-Generation Assessment Systems being developed by Smarter Balanced and PARCC.

This is a great site for giving structure and adding an element of fun to writing activities, especially if you have a data projector so that students can see the prompts on the screen.The site has been created by the makers of NightZookeeper and can be used in conjunction with that site or without any login.

The good news is there is an abundance of multimedia resources available that support the creation and sharing of student storytelling products. This short list of tools and teaching suggestions can help educators integrate a variety of writing activities into their instructional designs. All are what I call Push / Pull tools, which teachers use to push content out to students and which students can also use to create content that teachers pull back in.

We must represent ourselves and what we stand for accurately. At any hint of duplicity, relationships immediately go south. Those of us who are called to teaching have an internal compass that leads us to our core values and beliefs. It is key to remain true to ourselves while also finding mutual understanding with others. The struggle is figuring out how to keep our "true north," while creating an environment where others can do likewise. Even teachers who are staunch Republicans and Democrats can successfully work together if they focus on their shared values instead of becoming divided over their differences.

These guiding principles empowered me to establish a harmonious relationship with my most recent supervisor. Over the course of the conferences and observations, we were able to cultivate a dynamic, learning-focused conversation about improving both my teaching practice and her supervisory skills. Although she has since moved on to another school, we remain in contact as trusted colleagues.

When I asked Principal Chapman what characteristics she would find in her education "dream team," she responded instantly that they would be "critical friends with a diverse array of skills and experiences." Critical friendships are sustained by authenticity, two-way trust, and mutual respect—all of which need to be intentionally initiated, activated, and cultivated.

"As a 6th grade writing teacher, I used peer editing to help students find voice in the editing process and decide for themselves and with each other what needed adjusting and enhancing in their writing process.

Here's how to set it up:

1. Norms: Set up strong norms around what it means to be an editor. These norms should come from the students with your guidance!

2. Guideposts: Brainstorm with students categories for useful feedback. For example, feedback could fall into categories such as "I liked when..." and "Some suggestions for improvement are ..." and "Vocabulary words I loved were/Vocabulary words I thought could be improved..." Also, share how to make edits for quick grammatical fixes.

3. Intentional Grouping: Strategically pair students with each other based on different or similar strengths. This helps students learn from and with each other.

Important to know:

Spend a lesson on what strong constructive feedback really looks like. Model it. Have other students model it. This has learning benefits across all subjects and help students be productive and supportive collaborators. "

Art Teachers: This was made for y'all. Depending on where you are in your curriculum, pen-and-ink might not be the kind of exercise you'd do as a formal classroom assignment, but it could still be a great way to stretch your students. I know some artists who design a character (an alien? a pumpkin?) or pick a character to draw doing all of the #Inktober prompts. How would you have your alien doing "Swift?" "Squeak?" "Cloud?" "Mysterious?" ...or have them pick a favorite universe to draw in. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Adventure Time -- and have them still do the #Inktober prompts

Not-Art-Teachers: First of all, you should be. I should be. Finding ways to bring art into the classroom is a great way to engage kids who aren't engaged with some of our other go-to tools. But if you're so hooked on your curriculum that the #Inktober list of prompts seems like it would be inappropriate for what you're doing, come up with a list of 31 prompts that are within your curriculum. Connect it to the Bill of Rights. States of Matter. Digestive System. I don't know. Maybe look at the #Inktober list for inspiration, and then find a side door from those prompts into your own content. If 31 days seems excessive, just do it for one week -- see what your students come up with.

"The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Digital Storytelling (DST) on the (a) academic achievement, (b) attitude towards physics and (c) self efficacy perception of secondary school students. This study consists of an experimental group and a comparison group which are formed by equal number of students. The six-weeks study adopted a pretest and posttest experimental design involving 64 students in two physics classes taught by the same teacher. Digital story telling was additionally applied in experimental group. Nonparametric Tests have been used in the data analysis. Our findings indicate that DST participants performed significantly better than comparison group participants in terms of physics achievement. While in comparison group students‟ self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes toward physics decreased, in experimental group there was not any difference. "The Effect of Creating Digital Storytelling on Secondary School Students' Academic Achievement, Self Efficacy Perceptions and Attitudes Toward Physics (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312128678_The_Effect_of_Creating_Digital_Storytelling_on_Secondary_School_Students%27_Academic_Achievement_Self_Efficacy_Perceptions_and_Attitudes_Toward_Physics [accessed Sep 28, 2017].

Jim Lerman's insight:

Positive impact of Digital Storytelling on high school physics students!

Digital storytelling is incredibly popular given the proliferation of new technologies. This paper discusses its use from the perspective of secondary students’ academic achievement, attitudes towards physics and self-efficacy perception. The findings from the experimental pretest and posttest design elicited important insights. DST participants seemed to benefit in terms of their physics performance. Students’ self-efficacy perceptions and attitudes towards physics did not show alteration for the experimental group.

Overall it appears that digital storytelling has a positive effect on learning and therefore more research is needed to explore and contribute to the field specifically in relation to critical, reflective and creative thinking and learning motivation and students’ engagement.

This paper uses a case study of the drawings, early writings and imaginative role play of two children to illustrate how children use a variety of modes to make meaning in ways that are creative and beyond the design and expectation of adults. It aims to valorise the kinds of practices in which children routinely engage but which are often overlooked and de-valued by adults, both parents and teachers.

In order to meet writing objectives specified in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), many teachers need to make significant changes in how writing is taught. While CCSS identified what students need to master, it did not provide guidance on how teachers are to meet these writing benchmarks. The current article presents research-supported practices that can be used to meet CCSS writing objectives in kindergarten to grade 8. We identified these practices by conducting a new meta-analysis of writing intervention studies, which included true and quasi-experiments, as well as single-subject design studies. In addition, we conducted a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies examining the practices of exceptional literacy teachers. Studies in 20 previous reviews served as the data source for these analyses. The recommended practices derived from these analyses are presented within a framework that takes into account both the social contextual and cognitive/motivational nature of writing.

I’ve said before the first 3 hours of your day can dictate how your life turns out. And this often begins with the very first thing that you decide to put in your brain. You can either start you day with junk food for the brain (the internet, distracting apps, etc) or you can start the day with healthy food for the brain (reading, meditation, journaling, exercising, etc). When you start the day with junk food for the brain, you put yourself at a self imposed handicap that inhibits your ability to get into flow and prevents you from doing deep work. When you start the day with health food for your brain, the exact opposite happens.

"Anytime I start my day with junk food for the brain, the quality of the day goes down. I’m less happy, focused, and productive. I spend a ton of time on the internet and don’t get any real work done. But if I start my day with health food for the brain, I find that my mood is better, I’m happier, more focused and productive."

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